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This Must Be the Place (2011)

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

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10 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

With this tale of an eccentric rock star cut off from the world, Paolo Sorrentino joins the gang of European auteurs, from Antonioni to Wenders, who have followed success at home with a road trip to the States. For the director of the superb ‘Il Divo’ (2008) and ‘The Consequences of Love’ (2004), it’s a bumpy ride of stalls and diversions. He begins with a promising deadpan comic portrait of Cheyenne (a brilliant, surprising Sean Penn), an American rocker in exile in Ireland, but images and ideas part company when the film travels to America and falls in thrall to hackneyed visions of the country and a perspective on the legacy of the Holocaust that feels awkward. This is a wry and affecting film, but it has a sluggish momentum compared to the carnival of ‘Il Divo’.

Cheyenne hasn’t touched a guitar in years and hides behind a bush of black hair and a mask of make-up. He lives in Dublin with his wife (Frances McDormand) and exists in a state of amiable depression. He hangs out with unlikely friends – a young goth woman, a boorish office worker – and reacts with confusion at the modern world, at one point gnomically asking in a slow, slurring, weird voice: ‘Why is Lady Gaga?’ The illness of his father takes him back to New York and propels him on a journey across country to find an elderly Nazi who wronged his dad during the war.

Sorrentino’s films are visual delights, and there’s a lot to savour here. But too often we’re left with a carefully framed shot or travelling camera in search of an idea. The same can be said of the film’s Nazi-hunter storyline – it feels like an excuse to get Cheyenne out on the road. ‘This Must Be The Place’ is always curious and imaginative but it’s never better than its scenes in Dublin, and you’re left with the feeling that Sorrentino’s eccentric story and daring style masks just another movie about the healing powers of the road.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2172: April 5-11, 2012

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User reviews of this film

skcazy said...

Posted on May 26 2012 13:21 great work of art , inspiring.

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Joel said...

Posted on May 17 2012 06:22 Wonderful and quirky visual feast, a real treat for our private movie group to get to grips with. Very reminiscent of the David Byrne movie which I saw in 1988 - was that called "True Stories" or "Stop Making Sense"? (Per Ian's comment) Sound track sublime!!

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great said...

Posted on Apr 25 2012 21:05 Very very good - every shot looks like a work of art! Sean Penn is amazing as usual, and great supporting cast, too. A couple of bits didn't convince (the David Byrne gig seemed gratuitous, and near the end, things get a bit straggly. But there's so much about this that makes it totally worth seeing.

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Moi said...

Posted on Apr 11 2012 11:51 Why do all the reviewers miss the point of the song and the title which eloquently and touchingly encapsulate the ethos of the film?

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Ian said...

Posted on Apr 10 2012 20:29 Great, weird and very inventive. Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers have a great influence on this, not to mention David Byrne's True Stories. Loved it.

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twigmeister said...

Posted on Apr 07 2012 15:22 Loved it in all the locations, from Dublin to New York to Utah. Understated, funny and redemptive.

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Beck said...

Posted on Dec 30 2011 23:07 Dave, isn’t This Must be the Place rather a modern Peter Pan story - a beautiful movie about an older man finally coming to age? I’m sure it is, think of the cigarette scenes for instance…

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Fill said...

Posted on Nov 27 2011 23:30 A good movie. Even if it lack of an original plot, it's full of images from the visionary director: it's like watching a very good abstract painting.

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AFAICT you've covered all said...

Posted on Jun 01 2011 02:05 AFAICT you've covered all the bases with this aenwsr!

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Bob said...

Posted on May 20 2011 13:54 I can't wait to see this film, but a rocker named Cheyenne??? That's what people in Oklahoma name their daughters.

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